Spirit Science: Second Opinion

Back in April, I criticized a video series titled ‘Spirit Science’ that defied the nomenclature it had adopted by denying scientific practices and continues to this day trying to convince its viewers that they can manipulate reality through their thoughts through wordplay that bastardizes scientific concepts and squashes them in a ball of wishful thinking and new age motifs until it looks as if we are all Keanu Reeves, wandering the Matrix unaware that we can change the world on a whim. Let’s take another look at Spirit Science, shall we?

Like an unfortunately large number of these new age belief systems, Spirit Sciences teaches those who take its word without considering the self-contradicting nature of it all that the bad things that happen in our lives are our own faults, and that we could get over them if only we would try hard enough.

Of course, this is only part of the mish mash of beliefs that the video series summarizes but it’s arguably the most egregious, and since I ended on this note last time it’s only fitting that I start at this depressing piece of facepalm-inducing mantra. To deny that sadness can come from outside influences is to blame the victims of abuse for their trauma. Plain and simple. I received feedback on my last post from someone who has thankfully recovered from their years of abuse that put the feelings of sadness and hurt down to a malfunction in their heart chakra, and while this belief was compatible with this person (a person that I have respect for and am only using as an example out of fascination), there are many people who do not recover from their abuse and who spend the rest of their lives trying to process that trauma. To tell these people that it was their decision to stay sad and not to recover baffles so much that its falsehoods need no explanations.

We all want to feel like we have enough power to achieve our goals and more, but we have to accept that we are not gods, far from it. The notion too, that we create our own realities falls at the first hurdle when it comes to disease and aging. We all succumb eventually, and with people who die young, you would be hard pressed to prove that in these cases all of these people no longer wished to live. This also calls into question infant deaths. When you are too young to understand the world around you are you old enough to wish death upon yourself? I doubt it.

According to Spirit Science, ‘the energy making up the waves and particles of your physical reality rearrange themselves to match your dominant thoughts’. To determine that this is true requires a massive amount of confirmation bias. How many times do your thoughts not manifest in a reality? How many of your desires have not come true? Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want, and that’s okay. That’s a major part of what this philosophy takes away, the understanding that it’s okay to make mistakes, that bad things happen to all of us due to circumstances beyond our control, that the world is not under our control. With these ideas in mind, there is no room for error besides personal error, and that, again, places the blame on victims by default.

The fabric of the universe is not a canvas that we can paint onto, it’s governed by some pretty fundamental laws that prevent us from molding it to our will in a hundred different ways, and for something that has ‘science’ in its name, Spirit Science avoids any scientific discoveries that disagree with its ideas, despite marrying together concepts that also clash against each other. Science has discovered a lot since its methods began to be used to discover how the universe works, and it is science, with its insistence on evidence and reliability, that has discovered more about the nature of our universe than all alternative ways of judging the universe combined. The idea that it needs replacing with ideas that are fundamentally contradictory and aggressive towards those who are most vulnerable is fundamentally wrong.

Even if we accept their philosophies however (despite their fundamental flaws), Spirit Science claims that these philosophies allow the possibilities of long-disproved phenomena such as alchemy and astral projection. The first was a field of study that came to nothing and the second can be explained purely by psychological phenomena. The acceptance of these ideas without testing or taking what science already knows about the phenomena into account demonstrates how unlike a science Spirit Science is. The word science seems to only have been used to give the ideas behind the series more credence than they are worth. The series collects a series of beliefs deemed ‘spiritual’ and joins the dots where it likes without considering alternative explanations or even the incompatibility of its ideas both with each other and the world all around us.

After eight months of back and forth on this topic, I remain as unconvinced as I was when I first looked into this series. Those who believe it, feel free to, but try to keep in mind the flaws in this ideology, and if you are suffering, please seek help rather than blaming yourself. There are people out there dedicated to helping people like you and you would be doing a disservice to yourself to become your own scapegoat.

Eddy is an amateur writer currently doing a master's in palaeobiology. Yes, there's another 'a' in it. In between education and writing fantasy novels, he posts here and on On Record Magazine. He enjoys dinosaurs, secondary worlds, gaming, and roman history, because doing science by itself just wasn't nerdy enough.

2 Comments

The concepts behind “Spirit Science” aren’t new although I think the name is. I remember hearing the same kind of nonsense nearly 40 years ago. It’s always handy to blame victims–that way there’s never a need to think seriously about other people or boring issues like social justice, and there’s no need to inconvenience oneself by trying to change society or help another person.

First off, congratulations for tackling a subject most people don’t have the patience to even approach. I have actually met these people face to face out of my own curiosity. I was familiar with their subject material myself and wanted to see if it was an educational group or a religion/cult. What I found was a manipulative and sad drug culture catering to those that wanted quick and easy answers. It reminded me of any church/cult that has ever says all the right things, but then does the opposite. It also reminded me of the 60′s. Their entire culture is based off of hallucinogens and having knowledge of hallucinogens. To see them talk down to others about not knowing certain types of mushrooms was astounding. SS attributes their altered state of consciousness to use of psychedelics, both earth made and synthetically made (well aware of the apologists for doing drugs and I believe we are free to do what we wish, but I do not condone telling kids they should also do drugs). The scariest part is how many young people they attract. It’s amazing to me to read so many positive comments, defending these people (Religios apologists are nothing new to our world), after seeing what they base their beliefs on.

Every church has something to sell (To say that they don’t want your money is false, their website has been selling things since its beginning. They often are trying to sell “meditation,” cd’s to, in their words “help pay rent.” They also endorse T-shirts “infused,” with crystals that they hope to sell) So charging people for their knowledge, so that they can have a roof over their head is somehow enlightened? Again, I’m pretty sure the church/cult DOES actually have this down to a SCIENCE. If this was all so important why charge people anything? If oneness and unity were the essence of being how does money have a place in it? If crystals are healing agents why aren’t agents of healing passing them out in droves instead of charging money for them? Especially with our current healthcare issues, worldwide! Seems that if you want to separate yourself from the religions/cults of the world, this would be a really obvious start. It doesn’t cost money to talk, sing, meditate, pray, breathe, or dance but people continue to pay for them as if they have to. Humans are very strange sometimes.

At face value it’s the new age movement (Non-Indians practicing Hinduism), without a caste system, combining a few South American-Indian ideas, but from a western point of view (which means multiple Deities, they are just named Jesus, Moses, and Mohammed rather than Krishna, Ganesh, or Shiva). The SS crew has a healthy respect for the ancient astronaut theory (Zacharia Sitchin is an obvious source) and sacred geometry (Math/Astrology have more of a history in our world than most mainstream religious works care to mention so I do appreciate their introduction of some of these ideas, they just lack the sources and seriousness to convey the proper tone). However none of this is “bad.” It just provides human’s with another choice or opportunity to learn something new. Organized religions/cults aren’t my thing, but that doesn’t mean you might not be into it. In my experience it just helps to KNOW about something as serious as what they are presenting and not just repeat some things I heard from a You Tube video.

What is bad is what they are saying on the videos and how to achieve it, is not what they are representing or telling people in reality. You want to believe in what you want to believe, that’s cool but do it. Don’t say one thing and do the other, religions/cults have been doing that for all of time. They are celebrating the use of heavy drugs and attributing their knowledge to that. It’s cool, but the 60′s already failed with that approach. I get it, it’s fun to do drugs. The world would be a great place if everyone was on hard drugs though? I have a very hard time wanting to manifest that reality based on what I have seen hard drugs do too people over a long period of time, or short as it seems to be for hard drug users.

Whether what they say is scientifically proven or not is really not the point of it (it’s a cartoon with no sources so to expect science because that’s what the title says, is probably why so many people follow it). The point is that people are still searching for something and have yet to find the answers. As much as people may think SS is asking you to look inside yourself, they want you to follow their doctrine the same as any group of people with an agenda (So they say Father Sky instead of God, how original). They see the opportunity to impart knowledge for a price (Price is relative as well, speaking of relativity. You can pay with money, life, integrity, etc.) and clients willing to pay. This has been our sad state since the beginning of organized religion. I’m not about to think a group of drug addled kids has the next best religion/cult, but I’m also not going to discount their might be something better out there, available to all of us, for no cost. If you talk about how unhealthy alcohol is but then post videos drinking alcohol it really negates your credibility. When I saw them as drunk as they were in real life, I realized how much of the videos were what they hoped others would see in them, but in no way at all was it who they actually were. At least not on the days we interacted with them.

I had questions about SS and wanted to find out what these people were all about for myself, so I didn’t feel the need to defend or attack them. I wanted to KNOW the source and it was great because I wasn’t disappointed or disillusioned. I saw it for what it was and realize until people interact with them, it will just be what it seems on the internet. And maybe it will be what you are into! That’s cool because the world is full of religions/cults that do horrible horrible things to other people. These guys want to get drunk and high and talk about a better place? Cool, sounds a lot like college and college was fun. They aren’t waging a jihad on another country but be aware that the mind is a precarious place. Don’t be so willing to give it away to “the next best thing.” No religion ever started with a tank, it always started with an idea. That idea started to make money, so to did the need to defend that wealth.

I will say this about SS (saying it hoping they follow their own advice one day), you can manifest a lot of wonderful things in this world. You can’t help it if you are born with autism. You can’t help it if you have MS (Thank you for sharing your point of view on how someone doesn’t really will themselves to have a disease like that) and are wheelchair bound. What you can do is something about it. The situation can be as bad as you want it to be, or it can be as good as you want it to be (in my travels I got to film a child who was stricken with autism, leukemia and down syndrome but was one of the happiest people I had ever met. His mom was the same incredibly positive person her son was. He was taken off chemo last week and continues to improve daily.)
You can always DO something about what is happening in your life. ! Don’t Do acid and tell people you saw God because you sound like everyone else that did acid and saw God. Be you, love you and know that if you truly want an answer in this world, then you will go out and find it. If you don’t find the answer, change the questions. The only place I’ve ever found an answer was in the place I wanted to find it. I have no website or salvation to give anyone, just the hope that people see a bigger world out there and what we might be looking for, might not even exist yet, because we don’t think we are capable of creating it while waiting for someone to tell us what to see.